Work Text:
Aoyama Yuuga is, in a word… bright.
“Sometimes I can barely look at you,” Shinsou whispers.
The curtains on the wall of his room whisper back, swishing gently in the breeze from the open window. Everything else is silent. Aoyama is not here. It is just Shinsou and his thoughts and the sickly, sallow moon hanging in the sky like a spotty yellow apple, days overripe.
Shinsou is a lonely soul.
Aoyama has swept him away with nothing but a wink in his direction and a blast of blinding blue light.
The wink might not even have been for him.
He turns over, tangling the blankets between his legs. It's hot. Summer nights are unbearable. At least now that there's dorms, he doesn't have to go home over vacation.
Aoyama has, though.
It's quiet.
He can't sleep. He closes his eyes and there's perfectly styled blonde hair and a winning grin and sparkling violet eyes that make him weak in the knees, and they all become far too close for comfort in his mind’s eye when he starts drifting away. So he snaps his eyes back open and tries not to think of anything. All that accomplishes is him thinking about it all even more.
Shinsou thumbs the edge of his boxers. He’s tired. And he really shouldn't. Not with thoughts of Aoyama.
He does it anyway.
And when he's flushed and finished, he finally drifts away into a blessedly dreamless sleep.
The end of summer vacation brings Aoyama back from Paris in a whirlwind of yellow and purple, jabbering a mile a minute in impressively fluent French. Not that he says any of it to Shinsou.
Shinsou sits at the table adjacent to Aoyama’s and picks up what he can.
It isn't much.
The brilliant smile on Aoyama’s face when someone starts speaking back to him in his language more than makes up for that.
Aoyama roughly bumps into him one day as Shinsou’s carrying his tray to the garbage, and he exclaims something loudly, but Shinsou doesn't hear it. It might have been an apology. It might have been nothing at all.
He had grabbed Aoyama's jacket as he stumbled, and Aoyama had been pulled so close Shinsou can see he’d picked up freckles when he had been away.
“Monsieur?”
Shinsou startles violently, accidentally dropping his entire tray into the garbage can instead of just dumping it. Aoyama looks politely concerned as he immediately flails his arm into trash to pull it back out.
“Sorry,” Shinsou says breathlessly.
Then he stiffly walks around him and out of the cafeteria, face burning.
“Him?” Monoma howls with laughter.
“Shut up,” Shinsou grumbles, taking far too big a bite out of his sandwich.
The rooftop is cold in autumn.
“Sorry, sorry.” He’s so not sorry. “But really? Out of all the guys here, you went for Laser Beam?”
“He’s cute,” Shinsou defends around a pale slice of tomato. Tomatoes are more of a summer fruit, huh… “And he's nice.”
“I guess…” Monoma concedes, uncrossing his arms and stretching them far above his head. “Is that really all it takes for you?”
“I don't think you should be concerned about that, seeing as how you're not cute or nice.” Shinsou rolls his eyes.
Monoma shoves him.
Shinsou shoves him back, barely listening to him whine about how he IS cute, dammit Shinsou, and finds himself lost in thought again.
Are his standards really that low?
He thinks of Aoyama, at how beautiful and loud and bright he is.
He decides his standards may be low, but the bar?
Way too fucking high.
Winter brings unexpected newness.
“Shinsou Hitoshi, right?”
He can only stare, like a complete dumbass.
“Hello?” Aoyama Yuuga, in the flawless flesh, says hesitantly.
Shinsou nearly bites his own tongue clean in two. “Y-yeah, that's me. Aoyama?”
His laugh sounds like church bells.
Shinsou thinks he might have just died.
“That's me!”
Fuck, it sure is.
“My usual tablemates are off organizing an event, and I have no one to sit next to,” Aoyama explains. “You usually sit by yourself, don't you? Do you mind if I eat with you?”
The sting that precedes the soothe feels as addictive as liquor.
“I don't mind.”
Because you're always the only thing on mine.
“Oh, good! Tell me about your class, what's it like?”
“Does it really matter? You hero course students have much more interesting classes.”
“But I'm interested in you.” Aoyama rests his head in his hands, pouting.
Shinsou chokes on his bread. “Wh- ugh, shit- why?”
“Is it not natural to be interested in someone as interesting as you?”
“I’m-” Shinsou is faintly aware of the crumbs he's sprayed onto the tabletop between them.
“Although if you insist, I shall of course tell you about the hero course, Monsieur!” Aoyama preens.
“I didn't insist,” Shinsou says flatly, but Aoyama’s already going a mile a minute with explanations, drawing figures in the air with his fingers as he explains their training and classes.
He’s so excited.
Shinsou wonders how long it's been since someone really listened to him.
Aoyama sits next to him nearly every day from that point on.
Spring brings growth and an itch to explore.
“Let's go on a hike!” Aoyama shoves a brochure into Shinsou’s hands. “And eat something besides bread, would you, Monsieur? It's not very good for you to have so-”
“Shut it,” Shinsou reaches across the table and places his pointer finger over Aoyama’s lips. “What’s this about a hike?”
Aoyama says nothing.
Shinsou looks up, nonplussed.
He’s as red as a beet, and staring cross-eyed at the finger dipping slightly into his still-ajar mouth.
Shinsou hastily pulls back and tears his eyes back down to the crumpled paper in his other hand.
“Um- the hike!” Aoyama’s voice is pitched very high. “Right!” He smooths down his jacket. It was already perfectly smooth. “There's a trail not too far from here, I was wondering if you'd like to go?”
“Who else is going?” Shinsou turns the paper over. There's a map on the back.
“Um… just me,” Aoyama says far too lightly.
“Are you asking me on a date?” Shinsou blurts before he can slam the filter back down over the path between his brain and his mouth.
“No!” Aoyama practically shouts, jerking backwards.
Alright, that one hurt. Shinsou tries to not let it show.
“I'm just- I didn't know who else to ask, and I- I thought you'd want- unless you don't-”
“I do,” Shinsou interrupts. He's put a crease in the paper with his thumb from holding it too tightly.
All of the tension drains from Aoyama’s frame and he slumps forward like a rapidly deflating balloon. “Oh, thank goodness. I was so worried-”
“About what?”
Aoyama pauses. “Well, that you would say ‘no,’ of course.”
“Why would I say no? We’re friends, right? And you know I never have anything going on.” And suddenly Shinsou is apprehensive. Aren't they friends?
Aoyama’s answering grin is like the sun breaking free from a heavy gray cloud- stunning, but blinding. “Of course we’re friends!” he cries. “So you'll come with me?”
“Sure, what day do you want to go?”
And as Aoyama babbles on about dates and times, part of Shinsou’s conscious drifts away like a plastic bag in the wind.
They really are just friends, then.
The day arrives with no more grandeur than any other day. Shinsou wakes up, grabs breakfast in the cafeteria, and wonders if combing his hair would be worth it. (It never is.)
He meets Aoyama outside the school gates with two water bottles and a box of granola bars shoved into his backpack. Aoyama’s got the first aid kit in his.
The short train ride to the neighborhood near the forested park is mostly filled with Aoyama’s aimless chatter. Shinsou fills in his gaps of the conversation when he's prompted to, but otherwise he sits back and simply listens. Just like normal.
Except it's not just like normal.
Shinsou is nervous. He has never truly been alone with Aoyama before. He obsesses about all the stupid things he might say in between listening to him prattle on about nothing at all. He refuses to think about that deeply buried piece of his heart that keeps wriggling free and screaming at him, the piece that still holds steadfast to some notion of romance.
Shinsou doesn't do romance, not with Aoyama and not with anyone else. There's too many things that could go wrong, his quirk being one of his biggest worries. Who could ever comfortably be with someone who could hold total and complete control over them if they really wanted? No one in their right mind, that's for sure.
Still. That doesn't keep him from hopelessly wishing.
Aoyama's hair isn't styled. It falls in loose curls around his face. Shinsou wonders why he doesn't leave it like that more often. He looks so soft.
Shinsou cannot ruin that softness.
Aoyama's pinky brushes his on the seat. “We’re here.”
Shinsou stuffs his hands into his hoodie’s pocket.
Aoyama blinks at him.
They step quietly off the train.
Shinsou feels small.
The trees are towering, and crowd around the two young men making their way through the poorly beaten path deeper into the forest. The canopy is so thick that the only light able to make it down to them is tinted green. Moss covers nearly everything. Shinsou suddenly slips on some leaves that hadn’t completely rotted away from winter yet.
Aoyama catches him by the elbow.
“Thanks,” Shinsou gasps, trying to dislodge his heart from his throat.
“Mmm,” Aoyama hums. He does not let go of Shinsou’s arm.
Shinsou tries so hard to not think of what that means. He tries to focus on the green surrounding him; the leaves, the brush, the grass, the moss, the vines dripping sweetly from the trees like clover honey. But his eyes keep coming back to the yellow beside him, and the hand tucked firmly into the crook of his elbow burns through the sleeve of his sweater like lightning fire.
He swallows thickly.
A clearing is up ahead, and he wordlessly points it out. Aoyama hums again, leading him to it. The faint sound of rushing water greets them as they silently climb closer.
Something else is rushing in Shinsou’s ears, and it sounds like fear.
They reach the clearing and stop in awe at the sight before them.
They're on top of a steeply sloping overpass, and far down below them is a wide, roaring river. Across from them is a waterfall feeding into the river, completely white with spray. Trees cling valiantly to the sides of the cliff Shinsou stands on. They're nearly parallel to the rocky dirt wall they grow on.
Wildly, Shinsou thinks he can relate to that.
“It's beautiful,” Aoyama breathes.
The sunlight catches in his messy hair and he glows as bright as his quirk, as bright as his smile. It caresses his cheeks and slips down the cords of his neck and diffuses into the soft cotton-pink fabric of his long-sleeved shirt.
“It is,” Shinsou murmurs, not even looking at the scenery anymore.
Aoyama catches his gaze.
He doesn't look away.
He can't.
“Shinsou?”
Aoyama’s freckles were always faint, but now he can't see them at all. He leans in.
Aoyama’s breath hitches when their noses bump together.
Shinsou still can't see any freckles. They must have faded.
Aoyama’s eyes are as wide as the full moon, and just as ethereal.
Shinsou fights against closing his own.
Aoyama pushes up against him, inhaling sharply through his nose as Shinsou’s hands fumble to settle on his waist and keep him there.
“Tell me to stop,” is whispered against his lips like a desperate, dying wish.
“No.”
And so Shinsou Hitoshi, seventeen and hopelessly, heartbreakingly in love, finally crosses the last breath of distance between them.
Aoyama is shy. All of his energy is going into the death grip his fingers have on the sleeves of Shinsou’s jacket instead of into the movement of his mouth, which cautiously stays closed.
Shinsou can't close his eyes now. Every twitch of Aoyama’s eyelashes against his skin- he can feel them on his own skin, almost- and every tiny, hastily swallowed noise Aoyama makes is too bewitching to tear himself away from. He brings one hand up to Aoyama's jaw and cradles it, tipping his own head to this side and pressing their lips together more insistently.
Aoyama frantically relocates his hands to the back of Shinsou’s neck and digs his fingers into his hair, and opens his mouth with a gasping, low sound Shinsou knows is going to be haunting him for a long time afterward. His whole face is as pink as his shirt.
Shinsou slips his tongue against Aoyama’s, and the full-body shiver he gets in return is more than enough to make him feel like he's gone up in flames. He keeps up a slow pace, letting Aoyama breathe for a second before he hungrily opens his mouth for Shinsou again, again, again.
Shinsou is positively delirious.
Aoyama’s tongue pushes back against his with an urgent moan.
Shinsou feels like he might have just lost some hair to Aoyama’s grip, and some of his sanity to the sound that just bubbled out of him.
“Ao- Yuuga-”
“Shinsou, please-”
“Please what-?”
“I-” Aoyama cuts himself off with a rather impressive jolt as Shinsou's hand drifts down to rest in his back pocket. “Please, just keep kissing me, Shinsou, please-”
So he does.
This summer is a lot different from the last one.
He turns eighteen without much fanfare. Aoyama’s friends bake him a cake, and it's very good, and they let him into their dorms and play video games in the common room until Aoyama is nearly asleep on his shoulder.
Shinsou excuses himself from his own party at around 1 in the morning and wrestles his drowsy boyfriend back into his bed.
“Go to sleep,” he chides when Aoyama childishly refuses to let go of his stomach.
Aoyama whines.
Shinsou sighs heavily, accepts his fate, and flops directly on top of Aoyama. He immediately yelps in pain as the metal of Aoyama’s belt bites into his back.
That sure wakes him up.
“Oh my god, Shinsou, are you okay? Oh, no, I should have taken this off-”
“I'm fine,” Shinsou wheezes, eyes watering.
“No you're not!” Aoyama fusses, practically tearing his shirt off to unclasp his belt and carefully set it on his bedside table. “I hurt you-”
“You didn't do anything, Yuuga,” Shinsou interrupts. “I literally threw myself on top of you.” He rubs at the sore spot on his back. “I'll be fine in like, three minutes anyway.”
Aoyama bites his lip and stays quiet.
Shinsou suddenly becomes very aware that he's sitting on Aoyama’s bed in the dead of night, and that Aoyama is right next to him, shirtless.
Something writhes just behind his stomach.
Shinsou leans over and kisses him, once.
Then he looks down.
A neat, faint crown of bruises adorns Aoyama's waist, in the exact shape of his belt.
Shinsou feels the air go still.
Very slowly, he turns onto his front, rests his forearms on either side of Aoyama's hips, and presses his lips to the blue and purple blossoms on his stomach.
Aoyama’s muscles stutter with his shaky inhalation.
Shinsou dazedly trails kisses all along that ugly daisy chain. Aoyama’s thighs jump up and clamp around his ribs. Shinsou loses all sense of time, pressing his mouth to Aoyama’s body over and over like a man praying to his dying god.
His chin hits the hem of Aoyama’s sweatpants. They're his pants- Aoyama had somehow gotten away with stealing another pair, evidently.
Aoyama whimpers.
Shinsou slows to a stop, kisses his hip one more time, and crawls back up to kiss his boyfriend for real.
Aoyama is more than happy with that decision.
The scolding he gets when he's found the next morning, disheveled with sleep next to a still-shirtless Aoyama, is so worth it.
“Wow… you really got together with him, huh.” Monoma isn't really asking him anything. He stares out into the thick fog rolling lazily across the grounds.
Shinsou pulls his hoodie a little closer to himself to ward off the unforgiving autumn chill. As much as he loves Aoyama, he misses these rooftop days with Monoma as well. “Mmm.”
Monoma considers Shinsou’s pack of sweet bread, and grins wryly. “Some things never change, though, do they?”
Shinsou shoves him.
Monoma shoves him back, laughing.
Shinsou gives up and takes a too-big bite out of his bread. It's a little too sweet. These kinds of things are more suited for summer, huh… “No, I guess some things never change.”
And some things really don't.
But some things do.
And Shinsou Hitoshi, eighteen years old and wonderfully, euphorically in love, is not a lonely soul anymore.